Marko contradicts Verstappen: 'It's close, hopefully that works tomorrow'

Max Verstappen finished qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix in fourth position, after crossing the finish line in P3 in the Sprint. While the Dutchman finds it hard to imagine that Red Bull would be fighting for victory on Sunday, Helmut Marko was more optimistic in his verdict.

"It is so tight together and the difference to McLaren is much smaller than we were hoping. It's one tenth, so for tomorrow, if we can control our tyre degradation, it is a fight between the two McLarens, the Mercedes and the Ferrari. So it's more or less six people who can fight for the win," the top advisor began to Viaplay after the session.

As team principal Christian Horner pointed out, tyre management will play a key role in tomorrow's race. Marko also hopes their changes from the Sprint can further improve Red Bull in that regard as well. "No, we had on FP1 much worse tyre degradation, so it improved, But still, it started with us earlier than with the others. And it is a general problem here, but the changes we made, hopefully they are working tomorrow."

Reacting to Liam Lawson finishing in P20 in today's second session, the Austrian said: "We will analyse the whole weekend and also what happened in Australia and then we just see what we will do."

On the other hand, Isack Hadjar impressed Marko. The young driver finished in seventh place in qualifying. "Especially very, very impressive Hadjar, that it is his second race, he didn't know this circuit and I think he's seventh or something like that, ahead of Yuki [Tsunoda], who is in really good form, that's an unbelievable achievement. So I think from him we can expect in the future big things," he commented on the Frenchman's performance.

Does that lead to more pressure on Lawson. Marko says it's the part of it. "Formula 1 is depending on performance, that's all about. And at the moment he's the one who is a little bit behind," he concluded in Shanghai.

Want more Formula 1? Then follow GPblog on our various social media channels!

X | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube